Impact factors of sales employees’ creativity and innovative work behavior in banking industry: evidence from Vietnam

Abstract

This study focuses on the impact of empowering leadership and challenge work environment on both sale employee’s creativity and innovative work behavior in Vietnamese banking industry. An empirical test with a sample of 370 sale employees in 15 banks in Ho Chi Minh City by means of structural equation modeling indicates a strong relationship between sale employees’ creativity and innovative work behavior. Moreover, the findings indicate that both empowering leadership and a challenge work environment are able to trigger sale employees’ creativity. Among this, sale employees’ creativity plays as a mediating variable in the relationship between empowering leadership, a challenge work behavior, and the employees’ innovative work behavior. In general, this study contributes some suggestions for bank managers in finding out the appropriate methods to stimulate employees’ creativity and innovative work behavior in order to aim at a strong and sustainable business performance.